North College Hill town hall presses council on whether to stabilize or demolish 1500 Galbraith

North College Hill residents pressed city officials on Sept. 29 over whether to stabilize or demolish the vacant 1500 Galbraith building, focusing on public-health hazards, competing cost estimates and an end-of-year deadline to use federal ARPA funds.

William (Bill) Deters, the city law director, recounted the property's history and prior council actions, saying, “the city first took possession of that property in 2009” as part of an exchange with the school district and that council in 2017 authorized soliciting bids to fix the administrative-side roof and to demolish the other half. Deters and other officials cited a JMA engineering estimate that put demolition of the remaining half at roughly $470,000 and a later combined estimate that reached about $624,840, while the city borrowed $276,000 to repair the administrative roof in 2017.

Why it matters: the city is holding roughly $483,000 in ARPA funds that officials say must be assigned to a qualifying project and have work started by Dec. 31, 2025, or the money risks being returned. That deadline framed most exchanges at the town hall and sharpened disagreements about whether to spend the funds to stabilize the building or to decline ARPA funds and pursue demolition later using other…